


One Of Their Own

by tielan



Series: The Pegasus Project [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an explosion in Earth's upper atmosphere, people all over the world begin manifesting abilities beyond what was previously considered normal. Now, they have to learn to use what they are, or risk being used.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**prologue**

Two tiny craft hurtled through the emptiness of space, like birds of prey, their prows beaked, their wings lofty. They sped through the star-speckled blackness, escaping the gravity well caused by the two huge ships that hovered some distance beyond the moon - almost halfway to the asteroid belt.

An observer would have noticed that, rather than flying for the safety of the planetary atmosphere or the ISS, the craft headed directly for the moon, without any manoeuvring or dodging as they flew.

The reason for their headlong rush became clear a moment later, as the ships behind them exploded in a brilliant array of colour and light, sending a tumbling wave of shimmering particles out in all directions along the plane of the formerly-circular ship.

Two specks of light danced along that wave, swung in towards the natural protection of the moon’s bulk in a perfect arc, just missing the forward edge of the deadly wave.

A minute later, the explosion was dying, nothing more than sparks of fire glittering in the blackness of space before fading to nothing.

But as the wave reached Earth, flowing over it like molasses over a marble, something else awoke.


	2. An Unquiet World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the opportunity of her life; but Elizabeth's not keen on sharing it with this one person from her past.

_Sometimes it felt like the world would never be quiet again._

_There was always something, always someone on the edge of her consciousness, like an unending babble in her mind., a room full of ghostly people who whispered and murmured and laughed and wept._

_The last thing Elizabeth wanted was a family reunion._

_But she went, because it was unthinkable not to go - even if she’d have to endure the questions about what had happened to Simon, and why didn’t she want children, and don’t make that face at me, young lady - no, I don’t care if you’re in your thirties, compared to me you are _young_..._

_She put up with the babble - vocal and mental - and desperately wished for exedrin in one-pound tablets..._

_And then she saw him._

_He was sitting quietly in the corner with his grandfather, Nick, nursing a beer that Elizabeth was sure he’d been nursing for the entire afternoon. And as she entered the room, he glanced up with startled blue eyes, and suddenly she knew the truth._

_She wasn’t alone._

\--

Elizabeth was only a little nervous as she waited out in the antechamber of the Pentagon offices.

As waiting rooms went, it was reasonably comfortable. The couch wasn’t more than a year old and still had some bounce to the cushions, the carpet was plush beneath her heels, and the magazines were less than a year old. God knew, Elizabeth had sat in enough waiting rooms over the last few years.

She’d never been quite as nervous as she was now, though.

Over by the door, the dark-haired secretary typed industriously away without ever looking up at the waiting woman, completely focused on her work - the minutes of a meeting that had taken place just that morning. Quite single-minded - oh, there was a stray wisp of thought that the General was taking his sweet time, but otherwise it was all on the report.

Elizabeth didn’t ‘listen in’.

In the last six years since she’d discovered the thoughts running through her head weren’t her own, Elizabeth had learned a measure of control. Mostly from Daniel, since he seemed to have an instinctive grasp of his own newly-developed abilities.

He also, she was pretty sure, knew a lot more than he told her about the abilities. But the one time she’d pushed for information, he’d quoted national security. “_Actually, you’re better off not knowing,_” he’d told her. And one of the quirks of Daniel’s gifts was the ability to stop her from reading his thoughts.

These days, she didn’t particularly _want_ to hear other people’s thoughts unless it was necessary. Several hundred streams-of-consciousness overlaying her own wasn’t her idea of a restful afternoon.

Then again, neither was sitting in an Pentagon antechamber waiting for General Jack O’Neill to see her.

On the desk, the intercom beeped. “Sharon, send in Dr. Weir.”

The woman stood up, nodding at Elizabeth. “If you’ll follow me, Dr. Weir.”

Fighting the urge to check her hair and make-up, Elizabeth fell into step behind the sturdy secretary.

She had an inkling of what was in the wind - partly due to her gift, and partly to some very non-hocus-pocus information dropped here and there.

The world was changing.

In six years, it had changed beyond anything Elizabeth had ever expected to see, and she expected that in another six, it would change further yet as the true fallout of that double-explosion was made known to Earth. She’d positioned herself to take advantage of that change using her gifts, to make use of what was coming.

And it was definitely coming.

General O’Neill’s office wasn’t very large or ornate, although the eagle that soared on sculpted wings behind his chair was impressive. The desk was old and battered, yet possessed a ‘comfortable’ look, like its newness had been worn off, leaving it ready for many more years of solid use. The in-tray was piled high with a variety of reports and papers - requisitions, or so it seemed from the upside-down lettering, and a silvery CD-ROM in a clear case sat on a folded sheet of paper in the middle of the desk.

“Thank you, Sharon.” O’Neill looked up from whatever he was scrawling on a sheet of yellow legal paper, to regard the aide. “Did you offer Dr. Weir a cup of something? Tea? Coffee? I’m afraid we only have the instant stuff,” he said, addressing Elizabeth with a frank informality, “although there might be something stuck to the bottom of the percolator.” He shrugged. “Daniel’s always at me to change the pot, but I like the stuff. It’s got flavour.”

A little discombobulated by the ease of address, Elizabeth managed a, “No, thank you,” to the woman, who walked out with the same brisk manner.

As she seated herself, she was uncomfortably aware that the General was staring.

She was even more uncomfortably aware that she wasn’t picking up _anything_ from him. At all.

Usually, when she met someone new, she received a ‘flash’ from them - a spark of consciousness, the shape of their thoughts, an impression of who they were. For Elizabeth, it had grown from an initial, subtle awareness, into a conscious ‘knock-on-the-door’ with every new person she met.

But from General Jack O’Neill, she wasn’t getting anything. Not a spark, not a cloud, not even a glimpse of him. For the first time in nearly six years, she was going into a situation mind-blind.

She was a little surprised to discover that she was looking forward to this encounter with anticipation.

“Thank you for making time to see me, General,” she began, figuring that she might as well get down to business. His initial garrulity had overridden the pleasantries of conversation, and she didn’t see the point in drawing things out much further.

She’d been called in here for a purpose. It was time to find out what that was.

He sat back in his chair, swivelling around a little from side to side before he caught himself. “I suggest you wait until you hear what I have to offer before you thank me, Dr. Weir.”

“That sounds ominous.”

O’Neill smiled. The expression softened the harsh lines of his face, but there was still a measure of distance - of _difference_. “Not really. Well, not that much. Have you heard of the Pegasus report, Doctor?”

As opening salvos went, it was an effective one.

“It’s a Senate inquiry into people who’ve been developing...paranormal abilities in the wake of the Mars Observer explosion.”

Elizabeth was privately impressed that she managed to say it with a straight face.

Although NASA stuck to the official line regarding the double-explosion in the sky in late 1997, it was generally believed to be a cover-up for something else. What that ‘something else’ might be wasn’t known, and no-one official was saying anything other than the party line. The claim that the Observer satellite had encountered an asteroid containing fissile material, and set off a brief chain reaction in space might seem reasonable enough, but for the rumours of what had happened in the minutes following the time of the explosion.

“Been watching the X-Files?”

Pushing fifty or not, Elizabeth still thought David Duchovny was handsome. “It’s a better term than some.”

He stuck his chin into his hand, almost thoughtfully. “Oh, I don’t know. Freak show seems to be a favourite around here.” The slight mocking glimmer in his eye told Elizabeth that he was teasing - mostly. That, and her memories of Daniel’s affection for the man said a lot. “At any rate, after nearly six years getting their asses into slow gear, President Hayes has decided that now is the time for kicking ourselves into action regarding the - and I quote - ‘mutant issue’.

“You may not be aware, but the United States has been...collecting...people with unusual abilities for the last three years, once it became obvious that this...change...wasn’t limited to a handful of people.” O’Neill picked up a pen and began toying with it. “Currently, there are about...oh, fifty or so people registered with the government - mostly civilian - who’ve developed unusual abilities in the wake of the Observer explosion.”

“Only fifty?” Elizabeth was surprised. Fifty seemed like a very small number, given the number of coincidences she’d found in her private research.

“Those are the ones registered,” said O’Neill, absently fingering the pen as he glanced at one of the photos up on his wall. “According to our statisticians, in a population of three hundred million, we should be looking somewhere in the range of a thousand in the US alone.”

If fifty had seemed too small, one thousand seemed far too large. “And the government aims to register all these people?”

The quirked eyebrows reassured her on that front. “We’re not a socialist state, Dr. Weir. At least, not yet. But one thing that any government is always worried about is security.”

And suddenly, Elizabeth could see where this was going. “You’re asking me to head up a divison to deal with threats from gifted people?”

“You’re at the top of the President’s list of nominated people for the job,” O’Neill said with genial affability as he tossed the pen to the desktop.

A nice honour, but Elizabeth didn’t let herself bask in satisfaction. There was a catch. She didn’t need her precognition to tell her there was a catch - she could feel it sitting there, sharp and barbed. And it had something to do with the nature of this division - it’s purpose. And something to do with the military that had initiated it. “Where do you and the United States Air Force fit into the equation, General?”

“It’s not officially a military project,” he said. “But USAF is bankrolling it, and a number of the personnel you’ll be taking into your division have a military background. So you’ll have a military liaison working with you.” Now that the pen was out of his hands, he was busily tapping out a tattoo on the armrest of his chair. It was fairly obvious that General O’Neill was not a restful man.

“What degree of authority will he have in the project?”

“Second to you,” came the prompt reply. “But he reports up the military structure - to me, if that makes any difference.” A bland smile did nothing to disguise his genuine amusement. “There’s a reason for that as well. While the President hopes that your division will only be called upon to look into domestic matters, if it comes to a foreign incursion on domestic soil, you’re going to need military backup.”

“Will he be reporting me to his superiors?”

O’Neill leaned back in his chair, bouncing a little against the tilting springs. “Yes. But you’ll be reporting on him to his superiors, too. It all evens out.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated the disc and the folded sheet of paper sitting on his desk. “That disc has your brief, as well as a list of files on the known fifty. There’s an additional list and file of nearly eighty more, but those people are either uncontactable or have been approached and rejected the initial call.”

Elizabeth slid the paper and the disc over, opening the sheet of paper on which were scrawled names in a blocky hand.

Stephen Bates, Carson Beckett,Laura Cadman, Anita Dumais, Peter Grodin... The list went through a dozen names, all the way down to Radek Zelenka after which there was a line and two more names scribed down: Teyla Emmagen, Ronon Dex. She looked up and met the General’s gaze. “And these people would be...?”

“You can have any number, any group or combination you feel is necessary to form this taskgroup, Dr. Weir. It just has to include this dozen. Recognise any of them?”

“Only one.” She laid her finger on a name around halfway down the list.

“Rodney McKay.” O’Neill’s expression turned sour. “Lucky you.”

“He takes some...adjustment.”

“He could do with some adjustment,” muttered O’Neill, before the dark eyes flashed up. “You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Hear what?” Elizabeth smiled as the general made a face.

“As it turns out, you don’t have to fetch out McKay. He’s already on the project. So are Carson Beckett, Peter Grodin, and Radek Zelenka. Certain of the others are in various stages of negotation, and there are a handful that don’t yet know that they’re going to work for us.”

Elizabeth lifted one brow at the phrasing, but let it pass - for the moment. She certainly didn’t intend to coerce anyone into joining this project, but there were other, more pressing questions. “And the two names down the bottom?”

“Those two aren’t in the known fifty.”

“Uncontactable, or rejected the offer?”

“Neither, actually.” The general leaned back in his chair. “They’re part of a fairly reclusive community in the southeast Missouri - several hundred acres, mostly farming, largely segregationist. Think the Amish, but with technology. If that makes any sense.”

She eyed the line dividing the first dozen from the last two. “And they’re special because...?”

“They have certain...connections we want to make use of.”

“Criminal?”

“No,” came the answer. “But they haven’t been willing to meet or negotiate with any of the representatives we’ve sent out - even those who weren’t operating under the banner of the military.”

O’Neill grimaced as he folded his hands over his stomach, and Elizabeth eyed him, wondering what he wasn’t telling her.

“You’ll find the details of those attempts at contact in the brief. Maybe you can work out what went wrong there with your diplomatic experience. Anyway, the duo are valuable in and of themselves as well - but I’ll let you read their files rather than go on about it now.”

Elizabeth took that as a dismissal of the topic. She’d read up on the details of the two - and the dozen - later. Instead, she turned back to the general. “You’ve mentioned a military liaison,” she said. “When do I get to meet them?”

She’d worked with various branches of the military in the course of her diplomatic career, knew more than a few people who were placed high enough to qualify for this work. Privately, she was hoping it was someone she knew and could work with - it would make the joint nature of running this project a whole lot easier. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite see Robert Sumner taking this position, and last she’d heard, Steven Caldwell was assigned to the Virginia naval base.

“Now, if he’s arrived.” O’Neill leaned forward, pressing his intercom. “Sharon, is my next guest present?”

“Yes, sir. Shall I send him in?”

“Please.”

Elizabeth arched a brow, turning as the door was opened and the ‘next guest’ was ushered in.

Her eyes narrowed as he strolled in, casual as a man who had all the time in the world.

“Hey, Liz.” The lean on the nickname was deliberate, as was the careful not-quite-a-smile.

Fifteen years hadn’t changed him much. Oh, he was older, broader in the shoulder, and more muscled, with the air of a man who knew his worth and his skills and would use them. But in his eyes, the boy he’d been still laughed with casual unconcern.

Her eyes narrowed as she turned back to General O’Neill and summoned all the years of her professional calm in order to say, “Sir, I can’t work with him.”

“You could at least say, ‘Hi, Cameron,’” he said with an injured air that was _also_ achingly familiar.

Elizabeth was torn between the desire to laugh and the desire to scream. But she acceded to his request - the way she always had. “Hi, Cameron.”

Her last sight of Cameron Mitchell had been at the lawyer’s office when they signed the divorce papers at the ripe old age of twenty-three. What had seemed so right at eighteen - young and reckless and in love after four years of being high school sweethearts - hadn’t managed to survive who they’d become in the intervening years.

Up went the General’s silvering eyebrows as he looked from her to the man who seated himself with the same neat grace he’d had all those years ago.“Do you two have _history_?”

Elizabeth was fairly certain the general already knew. It would be in their public files, at least. As Cameron seated himself, a glance at his face told her that he knew the General knew - and that he’d known who he’d been working with.

And he’d still walked into the job.

Bastard. She didn’t bother to shield him from that thought, projecting it directly into his head.

I love you, too, honey, came the response.

“Ancient history,” she said.

“Sweet.” O’Neill drawled. “Get over it.”

The bluntness was unexpected and unwelcome.

Elizabeth had been working up to indignation. O’Neill’s casual shot took her down mid-flight and she met the sharp dark gaze with a new wariness.

“Weir, you’re in this because of your ability and your experience in dealing with people, particularly high-tension political situations.” O’Neill turned to Cameron. “Mitchell, you’re in this because of your experience in dealing with people with superhuman abilities, and because in spite of the fact that you have all the tact and subtlety of a fist in the belly, you somehow manage to come out smelling of roses every time.”

“Sam seems to think it’s a gift.” Cameron said with a gloating smile that made Elizabeth want to slap him.

“Carter thinks a lot of things,” said the General in the tones of someone who wasn’t convinced but was willing to go halfway there. “She’s not always right. Anyway, you’re working together by the grace or foolishness of someone who thinks you’re going to be able to make something of the situation we’ve got on our hands. I’m trusting to your professionalism, Dr. Weir, Colonel Mitchell. Your relationship - past or present - is your own business, but you _are_ gonna deal with each other.” The sharp gaze looked from one to the other questioningly.

“Yes, sir.”

Elizabeth’s acquiescence was slower. Cameron might be used to jumping when his superiors said ‘jump’ but she was used to a little more latitude. “And if we can’t deal with each other?”

“Then we’ll pit you against each other in a fight to the death, and sell tickets to the public,” said the general with a genial mockery. “But I’m trusting that we’re not going to have to take that route.” He regarded Elizabeth pointedly. “Am I clear?”

She fumed, but on the quiet. “Yes, General.”

“Good.” That dismissed, the General leaned back in his chair. “You may start contacting the personnel you choose as soon as you wish - all but one - and Project Atlantis rises on July 15.”

Beside her, Cameron choked. “Project _Atlantis_?”

“Daniel named it,” O’Neill declared. “Something about sinking beneath the surface and the unknown quantity...” Elizabeth bit back a smile as the general shrugged in the familiar, exasperated gesture of someone dealing with Daniel’s thought processes. “Would you prefer _Bluebook_?”

“On second thoughts,” said Cameron after a moment’s pause, “Atlantis it is.”

Elizabeth swivelled her head sideways to look at him, and was met with his best, ‘Who, me?’ expression - the one that brought back uncomfortable memories of forgiving him his worst transgressions because she hadn’t wanted to rock the boat in their rapidly disintegrating marriage.

Keep it in the past, she told herself.

Shock shivered through her as Cameron answered her as though she’d projected to him. I will if you will.

Instead of saying anything to him, she addressed the general, picking up something that she’d noticed in his last speech. “General, you said we were to contact the personnel on the list - ‘all but one.’ Who’s the one and why does he or she merit special consideration?”

She caught the faintest flash of something, like the merest memory of an echo in empty corridors. But it was more than she'd ever gotten from him before - one moment when his mind was open and his thoughts bare to her reading.

And one thought sprung out at her, clear and sharp with crystalline guilt: _Because what happened to him was my fault._

Time resumed and O’Neill leaned back, apparently casual again.

But when he spoke now, the brash tones were gone. “I’ll be bringing John Sheppard in,” he said with more calm than that one, grim thought had suggested he felt about the matter. “And he merits special consideration because he was once one of mine.”


	3. Living With It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Sheppard can make something of what he became, or he can live with it.

_Somewhere, someone was screaming._

_The resonances jabbed through John’s head like glassy stakes, splintering his thoughts and his concentration. His body was on fire, pain spreading through his muscles like serpents, sinking needle-sharp fangs into him until he could take it no longer._

_He had to move, had to run, had to act._

_Within him, something tore loose, breaking free with a howl and a snarl. He heard something that might have been a man’s shocked cry, and then he was out beneath the bright, harsh sun._

_There was gritty sand between his fingers and hot sun on his back. His feet scrabbled in the loose shale of the hill as the men below shouted in alarm and shock and his own men cursed and swore behind him._

_Rage was a bright thing inside him, incandescent, burning. It leaped like wildfire from instincts to his body, tingling in his nerves, sizzling in his muscles. There were faces, unfamiliar and dark. They cried out in shock as he came face to face with them, moving faster than his mind could comprehend, than they could see. And then they died beneath his talons, sharp and clawed and vicious._

_The steady chatter of weapons fire didn’t deter him, he could sense the bullets coming, dodge them._

_Elation filled him, vicious and powerful, like a lover’s touch, and he struck down men like bowling pins - one, two, many, more.._

_The shots that hit him came from behind, stabbing into his back and spine, causing him to hiss in pain and anger. His hands curled into claws and he spun on his heel, prepared to leap._

_Until he saw the man who’d shot him._

_His second-in-command’s eyes were clear and wide, fierce and fearful as he settled his weapon back against his shoulder. His lips moved, and John could barely make out the words through the pain and rage._

I’m sorry, sir.

_A spray of bullets slammed into his chest, distant pricks of pain, and, somewhere in his mind, John realised that the someone screaming was him._

\--

John didn’t glance up from the motorcycle part he was cleaning at the workbench as the door opened to a wave of warm air, summer sunshine, and the lingering scents of a pristine company car.

He carefully brushed away the speck of dust that would otherwise abrade the section of metal, and said out loud, “If you’re looking for your wife, sir, she went inside to get a snack an hour ago. She’s probably watching one of the replays on TV.”

“I know where my wife is, thank you very much, Sheppard.” O’Neill sounded gruff, but not cranky, and John lifted his head, but didn’t turn around. There were a lot of nuances to his former commander’s voice; he could hear them, even if he couldn’t identify what they meant.

What he _could_ identify was the uncertainty that preceded the general into the shed, a questioning note amidst the flat motor oil, acrid rusting iron, and sharp metal dust. “Right, so, how can I help General Jack O’Neill of the United States Air Force, today, then?”

He expected a casual joke, some comment about a cup of coffee and being a good host to senior officers.

He didn’t expect the answer he got.

“You can come back.”

John stilled.

Outside the shed, the crickets hiccuped in their chirping, a temporary lull, as though they’d sensed John’s moment of vivid elation, the rolling tide of exultation that swamped him before he clamped down on it with ruthless determination. With the joy of flight came the possibility of falling. He’d known both in his time as a pilot with USAF.

“Have the Air Force changed their employment policies, then?” His voice was calm as he stared at the back wall of the shed, hung with oiled and rusting tools, lined with jars filled with loose nuts and bolts, flat washers, and electrical wire, but he paused in his work, resting his hands on the benchtop so they wouldn’t visibly shake. “They’re willing to hire freaks instead of discharging them?”

“There wasn’t anyone willing to work with you at the time,” O’Neill said, and John could hear the prickly underpinnings of regret in his voice.

In a single, fluid motion, he swivelled on his stool, his eyes tracking with unnatural swiftness to the tall, lean form standing by the gutted 1940s Indian that John was working on with Sam. “And there is now?”

One hand danced lightly across the Indian’s seat before the general stuck it in his pocket and looked up. If there was compassion in his O’Neill’s eyes, there was also exasperation at John’s skepticism. “The President called for a special division to be formed of people with...particular abilities.”

“Freaks.” John took a vicious satisfaction in the term with all it’s pejorative meaning. He still remembered the way his men’s eyes had slid away without even looking at him during the court-martial, the way his former friends had avoided him. He might have looked human, but they were never going to forget what he’d become in those brief minutes that had changed his life.

John was never going to be allowed to forget it.

“You know, I don’t think your colleagues are going to like your name for them,” said O’Neill, apparently lightly, but with a hint of annoyance.

“They’re not my colleagues.”

“But they could be.” O’Neill let that hang in the air just long enough for hope to blossom before John managed to tell himself it wouldn’t happen. “You’ve heard of the Pegasus report.”

“Hasn’t everyone?” It had been on the news the other night. John had changed the channel, unwilling to be reminded of what he was.

“There are others who are also showing abilities.”

_Abilities? Is that what they’re calling it now?_

It was a risk, but John had always skirted the edge of playing it safe anyway.

He let the beast out. Not entirely, no. He had more of a conscience than to let the beast loose on O’Neill - he had a lot of respect for the older officer. But he let out just enough of the beast for his eyes to turn yellow and slit-pupilled, for his arm to transform into blue leather tipped with sharp, ivory claws, for the world to turn sharp with hungry edges.

His perspective changed, altering with his eye. Vision was defined by movement and stillness rather than shape and colour - a hunter’s gaze, spatially aware, prey-oriented. Everything was sharper, harder, more vicious against his senses - painfully so.

If keeping the beast inside clawed him ragged, letting it out was just as painful.

“And did these others require shooting by their own men in order to be stopped?” Even his voice transformed under the aegis of the beast, growing deeper and rougher with the animal growl. “Are they capable of killing two dozen men in under five minutes with their bare hands?”

O’Neill looked steadily back at him, remaining exactly where he’d been and not moving a step. He showed no fear, his scent betrayed nothing, but his eyes were like obsidian as he answered, “Most of them have never been in a situation like that. But someday they might be.”

John forced the beast back down again. He thought of it like hauling on a chain, dragging the thing back inside him, locking it up with a force of effort that was as much physical as it was mental.

As he watched, scales turned to skin, and claws to oil-greased fingers. He felt his sight revert to pure human tones again, and the almost-painful awareness of sound and scent and taste faded, leaving him human - or mostly. And with the beast caged up, he could think again and not just react.

“They think we could be a danger.”

The older man snorted. “Sheppard, even without your ability, you’re a danger. The animal or creature or whatever you call it--”

“The beast.”

“Whatever,” O’Neill said. “That only makes you lethal. Who you’re lethal _to_ depends on you. Not everyone who changed has your discipline - or your loyalty.”

John narrowed his eyes. “Extremists?”

Long-fingered hands half-lifted in a gesture of ignorance. “Probably. We don’t know. The UN is trying to form a superhuman watchdog - but the fact that there are so many countries involved makes it a bitch to manage. China’s got the numbers, but they’ve also got the Asian countries riding them - the little countries don’t want China as a superpowered superpower anymore than we do. Our reports from Russia suggest that it’s safer not to be known to have any unusual abilities - they’re trying to reproduce the effects in ‘ordinary humans.’” O’Neill’s mouth thinned with displeasure. “You can imagine how they’re going about it.”

The Cold War might be over, but old sins were hard to forgive - especially for the older military personnel.

John’s eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised they didn’t try it here.”

He was pinned by the sharpness in the dark gaze. “Who says they didn’t?”

There were fragments in John’s memory of the first time he changed into the beast. He remembered the sand burning beneath his knuckles, and the jagged shape of the mountain against the pale sky. John could recall the way flesh had torn beneath his touch and bone had shattered beneath his grip, the sickening hunger that came with the bloodshed, primal as sex, intoxicating as a drug high, and terrifying.

His body jerked slightly, in reaction to the vivid memory of the bullets that embedded in his flesh, each individual slug like poison in his furious body. He shivered, remembering the cold restraints they’d bound him with, the cage they’d left him in, even when he reverted back to human form after digging out the bullets with his claws.

John remembered waking up hours later in a pristine, white cell, human, naked, and alone.

“On me?”

“No.” O’Neill looked away. “I pulled strings to get you out. Others weren’t so lucky.”

John read the guilt in the man’s face and looked away.

“Are they still--?”

“No.” The answer was instant and fierce. “We did what we could to transfer people, shut down divisions. The project is closed. Now.”

“Casualties?”

“More than enough.”

And John was willing to bet that O’Neill carried those names on his conscience. It was the kind of thing the man would do.

It was the kind of thing John would do.

“So the government’s collecting its own private freak show,” he said, carefully banishing the old memories and returning to the topic of conversation. “And you want me to sign up?”

John had had his fill of people staring at him from the two months he’d spent undergoing the court-martial process. If there were any murmurs about his ‘freak’ abilities, they’d been only murmurs at the time, discounted for lack of evidence. His men had been loyal to him in that much, anyway, and John had come out of the court-martial, with his professional reputation bruised but not blackened.

The court-martial didn’t bother him. The stares and whispers, combined with his own recognition of what he was becoming - _had_ become - _did_ bother him. And John would never forget the day he was summoned to the base commander’s office and more or less told he was being given an honourable discharge. No reasons, no explanations, and no need for either.

O’Neill knew all this. He knew all this because he’d come out to find John when he got the news of the discharge, grumpy as hell at both the news and the interruption of his fishing vacation.

“They’ll need someone with experience in field operations.” O’Neill’s hands dug deeply into his pockets, almost facing off against John. “We’ve got a couple of military men in there, a couple of jarheads, another USAF officer, several sergeants.” The dark eyes watched John’s face. “You’d be more or less senior.”

He let none of his eagerness show, but the beast strained inside him, tugging at the reins he was tired of holding to keep it leashed. “That’s kinda difficult considering I retired.”

“You can come out of retirement,” O’Neill pointed out. “I did. Long story,” he added when John raised his eyebrows queryingly. “And better told over lunch. Which, Carter will attempt to make if you don’t hurry up. She gave me fifteen minutes to break the news and beat you over the head with it before she said she’d try her hand at the barbecue.”

John snorted. Sam’s lack of culinary skills was near legendary among her friends - in any other era, she and her family would have starved. Usually, she left the cooking to other people or ordered take-out.

“Then I guess we’d better get over there.”

While he closed up the shed, John glanced over at O’Neill, who was toeing rocks out of the nearby ditch, and kicking them into the long grass. “Is it just me, or has Sam been getting...domestic, lately?”

“Don’t look at me,” came the prompt response. “I didn’t marry her for the white picket fence.”

But when they got into the house, Sam was kicking back on the recliner with a beer and a replay of the weekend game between Arizona State and UCLA . A less domestic image of a woman, John couldn’t imagine. However, it suited Sam to a tee.

“So, is he in?” She asked without taking her eyes from the screen as Arizona played a wide pass that slipped through the UCLA defences and gained them twenty-five yards.

“You could ask me,” John said pointedly. “And I see you found the beer.”

She glanced over at him with the brilliant grin that had stopped many a young cadet in his tracks back in their days at the Academy. “And the remote control.” Then she turned her gaze to her husband and read his displeasure. Her expression turned innocent. “I couldn’t find the hockey channel, Jack.”

O’Neill rolled his eyes. “Spare me. Where’s the meat?” He said to John.

“In the fridge. Top shelf.”

The older man huffed and rolled his eyes at John, but with the kind of exasperation that was obviously sham. A moment later, he was in the kitchen, rummaging for tongs and a knife. “You having a beer?”

“Yes, please,” Sam called out, winking at John, who grinned in spite of himself.

“Actually, I thought maybe I’d just have an orange juice today...”

“Uhuh. There’s none in your fridge. You’ll have to make do with a beer.”

A minute later, an opened beer was sitting on the side table in reach of John’s hand, and another one was set beside Sam’s hand as O’Neill leaned down and muttered something about demanding women. She kissed him dutifully, then pushed him in the direction of the barbecue, her eyes never leaving the television screen.

O’Neill rolled his eyes at a half-grinning, half-envious John before going out onto the patio to start the barbecue.

John slouched down beside Sam. “So,” he said, figuring he’d get it out of the way. “What’s with the freak show thing anyway?”

She didn’t look away from the screen. “You mean the Atlantis Project? Don’t look at me. I’m not involved in organising it.”

“I just figured, you know, being married and all...”

Sam snorted. “John, did you tell your ex-wife everything about your work?”

“That’s different. You’ve got classification.”

Silence fell, and they watched as UCLA tackled the ball to the ground and the Arizona coach called time out. “They need you,” she said as they watched the players mill about on the field.

“Is that what O’Neill said?”

“That’s my own professional opinion,” she said, taking a sip from the beer O’Neill had brought her. “The situation’s not dire yet, but it’s only a matter of time before someone starts collecting their own private superpowered army.”

“Superpowered?”

Her head tilted to one side as she looked at him, her mouth tugging sideways in a wry smile. “It’s not the best term, I know.”

“I’m sure I can think of better.”

“Then you do that.” She took a swig of beer. “Other countries are already developing the people they’ve located with special powers. We know of China and Russia, but we have spies in place and diplomats working on the ground in those countries. More worrying are countries like India and Pakistan, or the Middle East. The government’s already put a ban on superpowered people of any nationality travelling into the US - but that doesn’t even begin to cover how to keep track of teleporters and seevees.”

John thought he knew what a teleporter was - thank you, Star Trek - but a seevee? “Seevees?”

“Charlie-Victors,” Sam said. “Chrono-variants.” She continued talking as her eyes tracked the progress of the ball across the football field on the screen. “Time-travellers. There’s at least one chronovariant and teleporter mix we know of, and we were lucky. He immigrated out here from Eastern Europe a few days after the m-- explosion. If it wasn’t for that, he’d probably have ended up working for Russia.”

“Mexplosion?”

Sam waved that away. “They’re mostly civilians - we’ve channelled them into various projects for the Air Force. The military personnel are a variety of ranks and disciplines. There’s at least one other Air Force guy - Major Evan Lorne. Nice guy.”

“So let him lead.”

This time, when the silence fell, he turned to look at Sam and found her watching him. “He’s not the same material as you, John.”

“You sure of that?”

“Right now I am. His records show reliability and initiative, but he hasn’t got the experience you have.”

“You mean he’s not a maverick.”

She snorted. “John, by some people’s standards, _I’m_ a maverick. Oh, yeah, run it!” In a single fluid move, without even pausing to take a breath, she sat up and segued into cheering on the UCLA team as they passed wide to a receiver who skidded his way through the defence to score a thirty-yard TD.

John couldn’t quite stop his grin. Of all the women he’d ever known, Sam Carter was in a class all her own. When he’d been younger, he’d thought it a pity he wasn’t attracted to her - or she to him. Now, he figured it was just as well. She reminded him a little too much of himself at times. “So you think I should?”

She put her beer down on the coffee table and leaned back in the couch. “You know what I think,” she said with a sideways look. “But this is a decision you need to make by yourself _for_ yourself.”

Yeah, he’d figured she’d say something like that. “Helpful.”

“Look, the project starts on July 15,” Sam said. “Turn up.” She picked up the remote control and began flipping through the channels. “You don’t know, you might decide you’d like to be part of something bigger again.”

For that, he was minded not to bother going at all. “That’s a low blow,” he told her.

“Yep,” she agreed, unsmiling. “But don’t expect me to believe that you’re happy here in your own personal Antarctica.”

In the six years since his discharge, John had kept his hand in. Technically, he was out of the Air Force. Retired a Major, never got to Light Bird. But O'Neill had worked out some kind of deal with someone up where the air was thin. John never asked the details, he just took the jobs. A few things here, a few things there. A pilot who knew the layout of the hills in northern Afghanistan, or around the India-Pakistani border, someone who could get in and get out under radar where possible, who could deal with tense situations when they couldn’t stay beneath the radar. Someone reliable but expendable, and who knew to keep his mouth shut.

John Sheppard fit the bill; John Sheppard got the jobs.

“Antarctica’s a long way south of here,” he murmured, ignoring the remembered sting of being needed but not wanted. “And a lot colder.”

Sam gave him a look that said he knew exactly what she meant.

Okay, so she was right. He missed being part of something bigger.

O’Neill had offered him a change. A chance to do something with what he was. He’d offered John a chance to not only be needed but _wanted_ in this Atlantis Project thing, even if it did just turn out to be a freak show.

“July 15?”

“Yep.”

“Just because I turn up doesn’t mean I have to sign on the dotted line, right?” The look Sam gave him was irritated and he shrugged. “I’m just checking.”

“You turn up, you work out the deal, you meet the others, and you see the situation for yourself,” she told him, clearly exasperated with his hesitation. “It’s not rocket science, John.”

John made a face she didn’t see, and figured he should let her get on with the game. Anyone who ever generalised by gender had obviously never met Sam Carter.

He eased back in the chair to watch the play, but his brain was busy thinking over O’Neill’s offer. The fifteenth was in a week’s time. He could just go and check it out - just go and see what was happening, maybe meet others like him.

If he liked what he saw in the project, in the other ‘freaks’ with whom he’d be working, he’d think about staying.

And if he didn’t like it, he could always just wash his hands and walk away and live with what he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't gotten much further than this story, in all honesty. There's a section with Carson, then a section with Teyla, and after that...we hit the action sequences! However, lack of time is probably going to be the big killer on this story. I'll see what I can do this summer (2010) but I'm extremely busy...


End file.
